


Picture This

by gottabekiddinme



Series: Iron In Her Spine [1]
Category: Avengers (2012), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Press Conference, always-a-girl!Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 01:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gottabekiddinme/pseuds/gottabekiddinme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony just can't forget that kid with the camera.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picture This

**Author's Note:**

> I know. I should be working on Mama Bear. Or the next installments of Trickster Town or Agent Angelface. Or outlining my NaNovel or heaven forbid studying. But I just could not get this out of my head.

She's always hated cheeseburgers, actually. She normally has to be either starving or PMSing to eat one willingly, honestly she prefers chicken. But today, that glorified blob of grease on a cardboard bun is the most delicious thing she has ever tasted in her life.

 

It tastes like home.

 

She looks out at the reporters, gestures for them to sit. “I...” She pauses, swallows, starts again. “I never got to say goodbye to my father. There's questions I would've -” No. 

 

No, this isn't about dear old Dad. 

 

“I went to Afghanistan to demonstrate my latest missile. The Jericho. It – it's terrifying, really,” She closes her eyes. “There was a soldier. A kid, really, maybe twenty, twenty-one. He was all excited, like...like a puppy.” She smiles, the kind of smile that only appears when you're trying not to cry. _Jimmy._ Jimmy, with his hand up and his peace sign. And Pratt _(“The Maxim cover models thing?”)_ and Ramirez _(“I'm an airman.”)._ Gone. All of them gone... “He asked if I would take a picture with him. I don't even know if his friend managed to take the picture, we'd just posed when the first bomb went off.” 

 

She looks out at the press again. Yeah. There's Chris Everhart. _Start scribbling, kid._ “It wasn't an IED. Somehow those bastards got their hands on weapons I created to keep that kid and others like him safe. I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero-accountability.” She will not cry, she _will not give them the satisfaction._

 

“Ms. Stark,” one of the reporters asks. “What else happened over there?”

 

“I had my eyes opened. I came to realize that I had more to offer this world than just making things that blow up. And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries.” And that goes over about as well as she expected it to.

 

 

It's almost a month after the press conference – the second one, when she gritted her teeth and told the world that Iron Man was her bodyguard _(“Do you have any idea what the press will do to you if they find out it's you, dammit Tony they'll crucify you -” “So I lie? What, they can't handle a female superhero?” “Tony, THINK. There's more at stake than just your pride.”)_ and resigned herself to a double life for the forseeable future. Pepper brings in the mail – actual mail? Really? Tony does all her corresponding electronically – and leaves a large envelope on the workbench. Tony leaves it there for a while, finally picks it up when she can't take the curiosity anymore.

 

She rips the envelope open, then slowly pulls out...oh. 

 

There's a note with the photo, explaining that the camera was sent home with Jimmy's personal effects and the memory card had been intact. And isn't that just ridiculous, that the damn _memory card_ survived when he didn't. His parents had found the photo, printed it out, and...

 

She traces his face with a fingertip. _“Peace. I'd be out of a job...”_ If she ever forgets – if there's ever a chance that she'd even think of forgetting -

 

“Jarvis?”

 

“Yes Ma'am?” 

 

“Look up where I can get something framed.” 

 


End file.
